Tobikiri Japanese Kitchen

This is a cosy neighbourhood Japanese restaurant serving the freshest and tastiest produce with real flair.

Traditional style with wonderful presentation in a cute almost café style environment. Super quick delicious food and a cheap lunch special… Not to mention a decent selection of sake and imported Kirin. Can’t fault it!

absolutely delicious! the food is fresh and priced well. the staff are friendly and polite. the vibe is awesome as well! can’t go wrong here! great lunch time specials as well– $ 10 for big lunch set!

Fantastic Japanese food, with some Aussie variations. Loved the eggplant with sesame and the gespatcho beef. Small intimate setting in a busy part of neutral bay.

Tucked away in Neutral Bay… I rhyme as I review.
…ok, that’s enough of that. This new addition to the Japanese restaurant scene has really great Japanese food and is in a convenient location (for us North Shore folk).
Just around the corner from the intersection of Yeo and Wycombe Street, this new restaurant has risen out of the ashes of the crêpe place (which alas I never tried).
Tobikiri is cute, relaxing, and a family owned establishment. I actually walked up, checked out their menu, and then noticed that the tables were all filled with locals. I called up, booked a table, and came with the missus.
To start we order;
*Agedashi Tofu ($ 6.00) — As a self professed Agedashi critic, I can humbly claim that Tobikiri’s dish was an impressive ⁸⁄₁₀. The sauce was perfect, the tofu soft and silky, and a nice coating. The only thing that I could suggest is it could come out a little hotter… their version was slightly too cool for me — I am after thermonuclear tofu straight from the fryer.
*Pork Gyoza (5p $ 5.50 /​10p $ 10.00) — We never eat japanese without dumplings… and whilst they were good, I would probably say these were standard gyoza affair. We opted for the more sensible 5 piece serving, as nothing would have been worse than 10 lackluster dumplings. Thankfully this wasn’t the case and we enjoyed them without issue.
Then moving onto the larger items;
*Tobikiri Carpaccio ($ 13.00) — This was the first dish to come out (as it was probably the quickest to create) and it was great. There is something about three types of thinly sliced sashimi (salmon, tuna and kingfish) surrounded in tangy and zesty (ponzo?) sauce that is great. I am not certain but I think the world is divided into people that really love Japanese carpaccio and others don’t… we do. This was a great start to what turned out to be a killer meal.
*Tempura Udon Noodles ($ 12.00) — First thing you notice when you get this dish is that it is loaded with tempura; 2 prawn, 4 vegetable pieces. The tempura itself is of exceptional quality. Crunchy, crispy, light and exactly how it should be. It was so crunchy I scrapped the roof of my mouth whilst trying not to burn my tongue on freshly fried prawn (great story). The udon was very tasty and I was suffering some food envy until…
*Teriyaki Chicken ($ 12.00) — I laughed because whilst I had technically ordered the Salmon… I really secretly and deep down wanted the Chicken. It seems that fate was on my side and now I know that Tobikiri does Teriyaki Chicken this good it will be near impossible for me to order something else. Really exceptional… it takes a very serious place as one of the best Teriyaki Chicken’s in Sydney (almost on par with Sushi on Stanley). I actually like this version more because it is bigger pieces and closer to home.
We are very excited to have a great new restaurant really near by that does such great food. The fact that we ate all this for $ 52.00 was great (we had eaten the same volume for $ 118 at Busshari the week before).
The Good: the authentic delicious food, price, cute and relaxing décor, nice spot to relax with friends.
The Bad: the speed the food comes out is limited by the small kitchen and number of orders currently being made, a few of the items we tried to order were «out of stock», the two older women sitting next to us that appeared to be more interested in our conversation and meal than with each others company (it’s rude), …and I’m worried that their slightly obscure location may detract from how great they are!
Summary:
We have decided that we will be going back again tomorrow night … so… that’s that. (Photos to come!)